


Red Beetle

by Zanbaby



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Caretaking, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear, Gen, Graphic Description, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Injury, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Elements, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Repressed Memories, Verbal Humiliation, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22197808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zanbaby/pseuds/Zanbaby
Summary: Julian still has nightmares about being force-fed the plague beetle~
Relationships: Implied Asra/Julian Devorak, Julian Devorak/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 132





	Red Beetle

**Author's Note:**

> Please be sure to read all the tags as this fic contains some distressing elements!

It’s late when you hear him. 

You’ve been mulling over some texts with a cup of tea in hand which has long since gone cold, occupying your own tired mind with information you hope will simply sink in on its own.

The mug almost slips out of your hand when his cry breaks the settled lull of silence surrounding you; it’s like being torn from the womb, and it takes you a second to fully come to terms with the rupture of your relaxed state.

Your name follows the first cry, and what follows that is a muffled series of pleas. He’s having a nightmare, and whatever awful, phantom pains he’s reliving, they’re probably only being exacerbated by his fever. 

“G-get it out! Get it out of me, please!” he cries, “it-it’s inside! It’s inside me!”

For a second you’re rooted to the spot when you first lay eyes on him; writhing, drenched in sweat and tangled in the sheets as he scrapes futilely at his throat with blunt nails.

He sobs your name, choking for air like he’s really truly trying to dislodge something.

“Help me! P-please don’t let them do it! D-don’t make me eat it!” he begs.

You’re at his side in a heartbeat, pulled there by the call of your name almost without realising it.

“Listen, Julian,” you instruct, raising your voice above his but keeping your tone gentle, almost as if you’re on the verge of singing. 

He lashes out blindly when he gets a hand free of his nightgown; entangled in every amount of material touching him, it seems. You catch his wild swing though, his outstretched fingers gripping desperately the minute he finds something to latch onto.

“Oh please,” he whimpers, “please help me! Th-they’re trying to kill me!” he wails. 

“Shhh, I’ll help you, Julian. I’m here to help you,” you assure him, “just find my voice and follow me, alright?” 

You keep talking to him; keep hushing him, all the while watching how his eyes move under their lids as he stops thrashing and searches for your calm aura, letting your steady, commanding voice wash over him and lead him out of his nightmare. 

“Good boy, that’s it,” you soothe, caressing the side of his face with the back of your hand. 

He whimpers your name again, visibly searching for you now as he turns his head a fraction here and there.

With no threat of him punching or kicking out in fear anymore, you take a knee by his bedside and let your voice fall closer to him.

“My clever boy,” you croon, stroking his hair back; damp with sweat and plastered to his forehead. “You’re nearly there, little bird~”

“L-little bird,” Julian hiccups, his eyes finally opening when he recognises the pet-name and finds his way home.

“Hi, handsome,” you smile, a hint of sorrow in your expression despite trying to manage something earnest. 

Julian’s face contorts after a moment of scanning your familiar features and finding overwhelming comfort in them, and you tut a series of loving reassurances as you lean in to touch your forehead to his.

“My good, clever boy,” you soothe, “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“P-please,” Julian whimpers, “please hold me.”

You get into bed with him, no further prompting needed, and encourage him to turn over so that you can spoon him and rub his back. 

“Th-they put it inside me,” Julian hiccups, unable to escape the horrible memory he’d just seen. “A red beetle,” he chokes, “th-they made me swallow it—it was wriggling I—I could feel it! It was still alive inside me!”

You wince a little at the description, but more at the hysteria in Julian’s voice. He’s traumatised — as anyone would be by such a distressing experience — but at least he’s talking about it and putting his troubled thoughts somewhere other than his mind. 

“My brave boy,” you hush, rubbing his heaving back in big, soothing circles. 

“H-he said I wasn’t working quick enough to find the cure s-so he made me eat—he made me eat it!” 

You knew this story already, but from Julian’s previously nonchalant recounting of it you’d believed it was little more than a squick of an experience. Turns out there were many levels of torture involved. 

“Do you want me to take it away?” you ask, halting Julian’s sobbing to a series of stuttering breaths.

“T-take it away?” he echoes, glancing over his shoulder.

“The memory,” you clarify, wiping away his tears as he turns his body to face you.

He seems to think about it; the question at first and what it would mean to erase a memory, but then he returns to the memory itself, and anguish washes over his face, twisting his handsome features again.

“Please,” he keens, shaking his head woefully, “I don’t want it—I don’t want to re—I don’t want to remember!”

“Shhh, okay, it’s okay,” you soothe, cupping his warm, damp face between your cool hands. 

He quells immediately under your touch, his breath still stuttering but his voice dwindling into soft murmurs as you touch foreheads with him again and draw out the memory — still at the forefront of his mind — and take it from him.

You see it for yourself now; Valdemar’s gloved hand gripping Julian’s jaw as the poor doctor shakes his head vehemently and keeps his lips pressed together, tears of desperation streaming down his cheeks not unlike the way they just were.

His refusal is met only with more cruelty though; his clothes are dirty from having being dragged across the dungeon floor in resistance, the fabric of his trousers fraying at the knees and revealing the grazes underneath.

Vulgora waits leeringly nearby, beetles in their thousands at their disposal, and in a surge of impatience, Valdemar pinches Julian’s nose, forcing him to open his mouth when he can no longer breathe.

The awaiting Vulgora then takes their chance, and stuffs a wriggling beetle in before Valdemar is clamping his mouth shut with one hand under his jaw and the other on top of his head, pushing down so hard that he cannot even chew. 

“You should be used to this procedure, Doctor 069, rumour has it you like to spend time on your knees having things in your mouth,” Valdemar goads, their mask lowered to reveal their needlepoint teeth. 

Despite his situation Julian visibly blushes, and his shame is tangible as the memory becomes yours.

His bruised and injured fingers clutch helplessly at Valdemar’s wrist, trying to pry their hold off him but to no avail.

“Just think of it like that,” they taunt, “think of your magician friend, then be a good little specimen and swallow.”

Unable to bear the incessant chittering on his tongue as the creature scurries about inside his mouth, Julian’s reflexes take over, and he swallows the still-live beetle.

An agonised cry rakes its way up his throat, smothered by the inability to open his mouth but somehow more painful to hear that way. 

Valdemar finally releases him when they see that he’s swallowed it, and Julian keels off to the side, adopting a foetal position as he claws at his throat just as you’d seen him do in his sleep. 

The unpleasant movement ceases as soon as the beetle reaches his belly, but Julian doesn’t stop sobbing, and Valdemar watches with vile intrigue; fingers steepled while the poor doctor wails.

He’s soon ungraciously hauled back into his room, but the minute he’s locked in, he clambers pitifully into bed, pulling his blankets up for some semblance of comfort before he returns to his curled up position, holding himself as he cries.

You blink away the remnants of seeing Julian frightened and alone in his office like that, waking to the sight of him next to you instead.

He opens his eyes too and sniffles, those tears of distress loosing themselves from his lashes as he grows calm.

“W-wait, what was I crying about?” he frowns.

You exhale a soft sigh of relief, glad to know that it worked at least.

“Just a bad dream,” you reassure, holding him as he snuggles up closer to you. “You’re safe now, my little bird.”


End file.
